Page:History of Greece Vol XII.djvu/187

 IMMENSE AUMV COLLECTED BY DARIUS. l^S which had been defeated at Issus.* Contingents arrived from the farthest extremities of the vast Persian territory — from the Caspian sea, the rivers Oxus and Indus, the Persian Gulf, and the Red Sea. The plains eastward of the Tigris, about the lati- tude of the modern town of Mosul, between that river and the Grordyene mountains (Zagros,) were fixed upon for the muster of tills prodigious multitude ; partly conducted by Darius him- self from Babylon, partly arriving there by different routes from the north, east, and south. Arbela — a considerable town about twenty miles east of the Great Zab river, still known under the name of Erbil, as a caravan station on the ordinary road between Erzeroum and Bagdad — was fixed on as the muster-place or head-quarters, where the chief magazines were collected and the heavy baggage lodged, and near which the troops were first as- sembled and exercised,^ But the spot predetermined for a pitched battle was, the neighborhood of Gaugamela near the river Bumodus, about thirty miles west of Arbela, towards the Tigris, and about as much south-east of Mosul — a spacious and level plain, with nothing more than a few undulating slopes, and without any trees. It was by nature well-adapted for drawing up a numer- ous army, especially for the free manoeuvres of cavalry, and the rush of scythed chariots ; moreover, the Persian officers had been careful beforehand to level artificially such of the slopes as they thought inconvenient.® There seemed every thing in the ground to favor the operation both of the vast total, and the spe- cial forces, of Darius ; who fancied that his defeat at Issus had been occasioned altogether by his having adventured himself in the narrow defiles of Kilikia — and that on open and level ground his superior numbers must be triumphant. He was even anxious that Alexander should come and attack him on the plair. Hence the undefended passage of the Tigris. For those who looked only to numbers, the host assembled a*. 1 Arrian, iii. 7, 7. ' Arrian, iii. 8, 12. Kat yap koc baa uvufia/M avrov Ig iTnraaiav, ravra re k K TT X X V 01 Jlipaat. role re upjiaatv ineXaiveiv evKETfj neiToirjKiaav Koi ty Itvtto) CTTTvaffifta.
 * Diodorus, xviL 53 : Curtius, iv. 9, 9.